A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c14.s2.52

c14.s2.52

The decorative designs in Cave I include a minor picture of considerable interest painted on a bracket capital, which may claim a full plate (Pl. LVI), as in Mr. Griffiths's work (Pl. 114). The subject is that of two bulls fighting, and its treatment proves the artist's knowledge of animal form and his power of expressing vigorous action. The same subject, with variations of detail, is treated in a sculpture at the ancient cave of Bhājā, dating from about the beginning of the Christian era or earlier, and again in a sixteenth-century painting at Akbar's capital, Fathpur Sīkrī. It occurs also in a well-known sculpture in the Louvre, brought from the Doric temple at Assos in the Troad, and dating from about 500 B.C.¹